Chapter Ten #2
A paragon who may have been sleeping with his best friend’s fiancée—or his best friend. But Van Helsing, displaying uncharacteristic restraint, held his tongue on that part. “I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on that.”
“Perhaps if you told me exactly what he said,” Mr. Keene said guilelessly, “I could help unravel the mystery for you.”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Sam said swiftly, before Van Helsing could get any ideas and invent something they’d all have to remember.
“With all due respect,” Mr. Keene said, “if someone truly sought to harm Mr. Enfield, I’m certain he’d want me to help however I could.”
“You’re already helping plenty,” Sam assured him. “We just need to ask his friends and associates a few questions.”
“Certainly,” Mr. Keene acceded, and before they could stop him, he turned and addressed the room. “Dear gathered friends—”
Sam’s eyes widened. “That’s quite all right,” she said hurriedly. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m afraid I do,” Mr. Keene replied in a low voice, before addressing the crowd once more.
“If I might steal a moment of your attention, please. These gentle souls are private investigators, looking into the unfortunate end to our dear Mr. Enfield’s illustrious story.
I would be in your debt if you would give them your utmost cooperation. ”
Sam winced. Mr. Keene’s words to the crowd hadn’t been an entreaty to share information; they’d been a warning. She could see the crowd reacting: their backs straightening and smiles tightening, their attention settling on the three of them.
“Thank you . . . so much for that,” Sam said tersely.
“I was glad to do it,” Mr. Keene said with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. “If you need anything else—”
“You’ve done more than enough,” Van Helsing growled. He turned to Sam. “Now—”
But Sam was already gone. The moment they won free of Mr. Keene, she broke away from Van Helsing, wending her way through the crowd to Hel, who was leaning against the wall with a somehow explosive insouciance.
“What was that?” Sam hissed. Checking over her shoulder to make sure Van Helsing wasn’t in earshot, she pulled Hel behind a pair of potted palms. “With Mr. Keene?”
“Do you know what it’s like in the places he’s talking about?” Hel said. “They don’t live that way because it’s magical and pure. They live that way because they have no other choice.”
“He’s trying to help!” Sam countered. Even as she spoke, she knew that it was a weak argument.
She might as well have said Detective Lynch was trying to help, for he was, in his way, unlike some of the worst elements in British Parliament.
It was only that his idea of help was objectionable.
The equivalent to deciding that the problem with your face was that it was yours. “That’s better than most.”
“Oh, and he’s asked them what they want, has he?
” Hel snapped. Hel, it seemed, was more for Kavanagh than Yeats.
But if poets were the ones shaping the face of Ireland on the world stage, surely it was better that it was an idealized portrayal?
Unless, she supposed, you were the one being idealized and not heard.
This was, Sam decided, entirely too complicated for her, as an American, to parse. No matter how many stories she had heard from her grandfather.
But whatever she might have said next was lost as Van Helsing’s head poked through the decorative palms, as if he were stalking through the jungle. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. What are you two arguing about?”
“Politics,” Sam said, even as Hel drawled, “Poetry.”
“Right, then . . .” Van Helsing said, looking as if he regretted asking. At least they’d been arguing when he’d discovered them. “Look, whoever these people are, they’re obviously hiding something. We need to split up and see what we can uncover.”
“With pleasure,” Sam said. Perhaps she could get something done without the other two looming over her, being obvious.
“Gladly,” Hel countered. They exchanged a heated look. Van Helsing sighed.
Even on her own, the crowd parted around Sam like minnows from a pike, intense conversations melting away to mild pleasantries whenever she drew near, eyes following her wherever she moved.
“Do you know of any reason someone might have held a grudge against him?” Sam overheard Van Helsing asking an older gentleman sporting a monocle and a magnificent salt-and-pepper beard.
“Oh, no,” he scoffed. “Mr. Enfield was well respected. He was philanthropic, generous to a fault. Was a, uh, fantastic shot?”
“Did he have any connection to Mr. Pearse or Mr. Hayes?” Hel asked somewhere to Sam’s left.
“You mean aside from—” an artistic young man started, looking up from the book he’d been reading, only for Mr. Keene to catch his eye and shake his head. “Not . . . having one?”
“Did you know him well?” Sam asked a cluster of black-gowned young women standing by the greying spikes of pale starlike blooms of asphodel.
“It’s just so sad,” wailed the first, a curvy redhead in black chiffon, her face the image of artful tragedy. “He was so young, and so handsome.”
“Not that young,” murmured another, a brunette in black satin, with kohl-lined eyes, looking more bored than anything. “He was nearly thirty-five, and a confirmed bachelor.”
The redhead leaned forward, confiding. “Only because he was in love with—”
The third, a wary black-veiled blonde in Tahitian pearls, shot her a stern glare. “This is a funeral. Have some decorum.”
“What? I’m only saying what everyone knows,” the redhead said, and Sam got nothing more out of them than inane pleasantries about the weather, which wasn’t actually that pleasant.
“Anything?” Van Helsing asked when they gathered back together to exchange notes.
Hel shook her head. “Apart from the fact that almost no one here is Irish, and they’re all absurdly wealthy?”
“Is it just me, or did no one like Mr. Enfield particularly well?” Sam asked. “For friends, I mean.”
“Some of them didn’t seem to know him at all,” Hel agreed.
“We’re wasting our time,” Van Helsing said. “If they know anything, which I’m not certain they do, they’re not telling.”
“We can’t just leave,” Sam protested.
“That,” Van Helsing said, “was not what I was suggesting.”
“There is one more person we could ask,” Hel said.
Sam followed her gaze to Simon Ashdown, heir to the Ashdown railroad fortune and their host. He lounged by the white marble fireplace carved with lotus fruit, above which was a richly colored oil painting of King Edward VII in a profusion of rich fabrics, sprawled across his throne like a general, sword in hand.
“Mr. Ashdown?” Van Helsing raised an eyebrow. “Why would he tell us anything?”
“Look at his eyes,” Hel said. They were glazed with drink, which meant there was a chance, however slim, that he might slip and accidentally provide them with something close to answers. “Besides, do you have a better idea?”
“Fine,” Van Helsing sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Is there anything you can tell us?” Van Helsing asked directly, after their introductions. “Anything at all?”
“The way I heard it, it was a bit of abnormal phenomena.” Mr. Ashdown sniffed, swirling his brandy.
His face evoked a kind of helplessness, as if everything happening were entirely out of his hands.
It was his brows, Sam decided. They were stuck in a permanent state of surprise.
“Perils of living in Ireland, I’m afraid. ”
“You could always leave,” Hel suggested.
“I heard that there have been others,” Sam said quickly, stepping on Hel’s foot. “That he’s not the first to be taken.”
“Nor will he be the last, I imagine,” Mr. Ashdown said dismissively. “There were always going to be sacrifices. It’s charmingly uncivilized here, but it does come with its risks. We’ve had an incursion or two of our own, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Had to board up the windows.”
“I can’t imagine why you all settled here,” Hel said dryly.
“It has its benefits,” Mr. Ashdown said, alcohol rendering him oblivious to Hel’s tone. “Ireland is like—what does that Yeats fellow call it? Ah yes, soft wax. Ripe for molding.”
Sam wasn’t an expert, but she didn’t think Yeats had meant it that way. Mr. Keene had appeared interested in uncovering the world’s true nature; Simon Ashdown seemed more interested in what he could take from it.
“This is impossible,” Sam said after Mr. Ashdown had excused himself to fetch another brandy.
“We need to see what they’re not showing us,” Hel said.
“Without them noticing,” Van Helsing agreed. “Perhaps one of us could slip away, while the others—”
Shouting broke out behind them, voices tangled into unintelligibility. The three of them turned to see Mr. Keene barring the door, fury written in every line of his body, blood dripping from his knuckles. The crowd hushed. The poet, it seemed, had punched someone.
“How dare you come here,” Mr. Keene said. “This is a remembrance.”
“Now it gets interesting,” Hel murmured.
Van Helsing shoved his way through the gawking crowd, Sam and Hel trailing behind, until they were near enough to the front door that they could see the object of Mr. Keene’s ire: a man on his hands and knees just outside, his black cloak falling around him like a shroud.
His hands curled into fists on the cobblestones, but no one helped him up.
In fact, they pulled back, whispering amongst themselves.
He stood slowly, sweeping his dark brown hair back from his face with both hands, revealing a bloody nose.
éamonn Bishop. Strange that they should run into him here as well.
Mr. Bishop turned, catching the cane that came sailing after him in one hand. Holding it before him, he raised an eyebrow at Mr. Keene and looked around theatrically. “A remembrance? This? Where are the tears? The wails? The lamentations of the women?”